President also calls for increases on federal spending for CNG vehicles, vehicle research, and EV tax credits

At a speech at Georgetown University in the nation's capitol, President Barack Obama's (D) message to automakers was simple -- "told you so."

I. Obama Crows Over Fuel Economy Victories

He remarked:

The fuel standards that we put in place just a few years ago didn’t cripple automakers. The American auto industry retooled, and today, our automakers are selling the best cars in the world at a faster rate than they have in five years — with more hybrid, more plug-in, more fuel-efficient cars.

The old rules may say we can’t protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time, but in America, we’ve always used new technologies — we’ve used science; we’ve used research and development and discovery to make the old rules obsolete.

The result is a mixed bag -- customers will save thousands of dollars at the pump over the lifetime of their vehicles (the exact amount is dependent on the price of fuel), but will pay $2,059 USD more for a new truck and $1,726 USD more for a new car on average (critics contend the true price increase will be at least twice that). And automakers have to swallow an estimated $200B USD in costs for developing advanced fuel efficiency technologies.

In his speech, the President also plugged General Motors Comp. (GM) -- a bailout recipient -- for making a climate change pledge. The President remarked, "More than 500 businesses, including giants like GM and Nike, issued a Climate Declaration, calling action on climate change 'one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century.'"

Emboldened by the concessions that he has already won from the industry, the President proposed more regulation in his speech -- including a fresh round of CAFE targets for heavy duty trucks. The heavy-duty truck segment (which includes semis, garbage trucks, buses and three-quarter-ton pickups) was first regulated under President Bush's Energy Act of 2007, which calls for a 20 percent increase in average fuel economy by 2018.

The standard refresh would go into effect by 2018, and force that vehicle segment -- which typically features inherently poor fuel economy -- to continue more yearly bumps in efficiency. Despite the gains since 2007, heavy-duty vehicles are still the second largest source of emissions in the transportation sector, according to the White House.

The President also called for regulations to limit the amount of carbon power plants can emit -- regulations that could force coal and oil burning plants to purchase expensive carbon capture and storage systems.

The speech compared these changes to the introduction of the federally forced introduction of the catalytic converter in 1970 (via the 1970 expansion of the Clean Air Act to cover automobiles), which critics complained would damage the industry. He remarked:

At the time when we passed the Clean Air Act to try to get rid of some of this smog, some of the same doomsayers were saying new pollution standards will decimate the auto industry. Guess what — it didn’t happen. Our air got cleaner.

The President threatened the oil industry that he wouldn't approve the Keystone oil pipeline unless it cooperated with emissions improvements, remarking that the pipeline would be approved "only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution."

The President wants stricter emissions standards for power plants. [Image Source: Reuters]

At least some of the President's demands are unlikely to be fulfilled given the Republican control of the House. Thus far Republicans in Congress have fought efforts to bump tax credits for EVs/plug-ins and efforts to increase vehicle research funding.

With the EU getting very draconian on carbon - producing more efficient machinery (from a carbon release perspective) is a tremendous opportunity for greater exports for the USA.

Other places (I'm thinking the Chinese mega-cities), will also be a tremendous opportunity for clean emission vehicles, due to the pollution-driven health issues that will develop over time within these cities.

I doubt its possible even then. A Prius sized vehicle doesn't work for a family. And even Fusion/Camry/Accord sized vehicles are topping out around 45 mpg right now. But in 12 years we're supposed to be at an AVERAGE of 54.5? Yes I know it's not quite that cut and dry to the number. But even if it was an average of 40. That means larger vehicles have to FAR better than they do today.

You can't make a pickup truck that gets 25 mpg in the city and 35 mpg on the highway. At least if you want it to be able to do any work. You might be able to hit 22-24 and 30 with diesels. But you know the EPA will likely try to increase emissions standards again before 2025 that will further prevent diesels from becoming big in America.

I believe the "real" average is somewhere in the mid 30's which is still difficult. At least not without raising prices (which they're doing already).

quote: You can't make a pickup truck that gets 25 mpg in the city and 35 mpg on the highway. At least if you want it to be able to do any work. You might be able to hit 22-24 and 30 with diesels.

It's not the engine necessarily, it's the poor aero of large trucks that keeps mpg down. You can hypermile a Ford 1 ton diesel to 30 mpg but only with low speeds and no stops. Getting that kind of economy with normal driving (you know where you obey traffic laws), will take a significant, expensive change in design. I personally don't expect to be able to afford the 3/4 and 1 ton trucks in the future. My only consolation is that I only need a 1/2 ton so not a big deal really. Of course there's always used one's but my guess is that market will see prices spikes and low inventory.

quote: It's not the engine necessarily, it's the poor aero of large trucks that keeps mpg down. You can hypermile a Ford 1 ton diesel to 30 mpg but only with low speeds and no stops. Getting that kind of economy with normal driving (you know where you obey traffic laws), will take a significant, expensive change in design.

And would this change in design have any significant impact on this?

quote: You can't make a pickup truck that gets 25 mpg in the city and 35 mpg on the highway. At least if you want it to be able to do any work.

The point FIT was making is that nobody that pushes their trucks to the extreme will want any change in design if it means the extremes they can push them to will suffer as a result. For people that actually need a truck, such a redesign would be seen as a step backward, not forward.

This is all my opinion of course but I think it's a matter of money and what we are willing to buy (like always). You could make a truck get 25/35 and be just as capable but now you're talking a $120,000 (probably much more). No way is anyone buying that.

quote: The point FIT was making is that nobody that pushes their trucks to the extreme will want any change in design if it means the extremes they can push them to will suffer as a result. For people that actually need a truck, such a redesign would be seen as a step backward, not forward.

No arguments from me here. In order to keep this affordable, a reduction in capability would have to happen and that's NOT going to happen. They might be able to get mid 20's ish mpg hwy with some aero improvements but as long as they have to use DEF the engine is not going to get them there by itself. At least not without significant expense.

It is going to have to be one or the other, emissions or fuel economy. Sure we got better emissions when the catalytic converter was introduced but fuel economy also took a hit on vehicles of the same size. When more mileage was needed the move was made to smaller vehicles until the technology could improve for larger ones, but there still were limits.

The original Dodge with the Cummins Diesels would get 27mpg highway when properly tuned and geared about two decades ago, but they would certainly not pass emissions standards of today when setup like that.

Since they are trying to kill the coal industry this example may not be so accurate, but around here the coal trucks haul 135,000 pounds of coal at a time down the highway(that is their permitted limits here in Kentucky). If you make a truck that gets twice the fuel mileage but can only haul half as much weight, then you have to run twice as many trucks which gains you absolutely nothing as far as emissions go. Yet it will look good on the propaganda when you tell everyone the trucks now get twice the fuel economy.

I guess next they will be wanting bulldozers to be half the size so they can get twice the economy. Wait until they mandate it for farm tractors and cause the price of food to go up. Oh wait, they will just expect farmers to absorb the costs like always so they can have their fuel economy win and keep food cheap.

CAFE mileages are different from EPA mileages. They used to be the same back in the 1970s when CAFE was created, but the EPA tests have been updated multiple times while CAFE has not. So 54.5 MPG CAFE is probably closer to 40 MPG EPA.http://www.edmunds.com/autoobserver-archive/2009/0...

The bigger problem is that all these benchmarks are based on MPG, which exaggerates both the benefit of higher mileage, and the contribution of higher mileage vehicles to the fleet average. If you want to reduce the country's oil consumption, it's much more effective to discourage people from buying low-mileage SUVs, than it is to encourage people to buy high-mileage hybrids. Unfortunately, our use of MPG makes the opposite seem true.

The measure you want to be using is the inverse - gallons per mile. MPG tells you how many miles you can go on a single gallon. But that's not how people drive. You don't fill your car with 15 gallons and say "I have to make this last two weeks," and stop driving when the tank is empty. You have a fixed number of miles you need to drive in two weeks, and use however many gallons are needed to drive that distance. So the correct measure is GPM.

e.g. If your work commute is 150 miles in a week, switching from a 15 MPG SUV to a 25 MPG sedan will go from burning 10 gallons to 6 gallons - a savings of 4 gallons.

Switching from a 25 MPG sedan to a 50 MPG hybrid will go from burning 6 gallons to 3 gallons - a savings of only 3 gallons.

So in a switch from an SUV to a hybrid, the majority of the fuel savings (4 of 7 gallons saved) comes from the 15->25 MPG portion (a 10 MPG difference). Only 3 of the 7 gallons saved comes from the 25->45 MPG portion despite the difference in MPG being 2.5x larger (25 MPG). MPG exaggerates the impact and importance of high mileage vehicles.

Same thing with fleet average mileages. If you're using MPG, the correct way to calculate the average for two cars is 2/MPGavg = 1/MPG1 + 1/MPG2. If you use (MPG1 + MPG2)/2, you exaggerate the impact of the higher MPG vehicle.

the simple explanation is the harmonic mean captures the fuel economy of driving each car in the fleet for the same number of miles, while the arithmetic mean captures the fuel economy of driving each car using the same amount of gas.

Keep in mind the average includes the eMPG estimates that are given to electric cars. The Tesla Model S gets 88/90 according to the EPA, Tesla could sell just as many 25mpg ICE cars as they do Model S's and still meet the 55mpg standard.

The aggressive goal, combined with the EPA's generous interpretation of electric vehicle mileage is basically saying to the automakers: "get electric vehicles on the road".

This stereotyping is retarded and entirely inaccurate. For example, I know plenty of black people who bought low mileage big vehicles that trees seems to die as they pass it. In fact, every black person I know wants to be more like republicans but always vote democrats. The truth is it's not just black people, everyone wants to be rich and own businesses. The vast majority won't make it there so they'll vote for what gives them the most benefits. Being poor or just average, the democratic party will give you more benefits and therefore win your vote.

If you don't remember history, the democratic party was the fiscally responsible one. However, that wasn't popular back then so they aimed to get more votes by being friendly with poor people. They did just that and thus the 2 parties' platforms did a switch. This started in the 1950s.

quote: For example, I know plenty of black people who bought low mileage big vehicles that trees seems to die as they pass it. In fact, every black person I know wants to be more like republicans but always vote democrats. The truth is it's not just black people, everyone wants to be rich and own businesses.

He accuses me of using a "stereotype", and immediately stereotypes "black people". I mean I'm not saying he's racist, I hate people who make blanket accusations, but did he really need to go there to make his point?

I went to my local (rural Ark.) Dodge dealership to test drive a V8 Challenger about 6 months ago (couldn't afford one, but wanted to try it out anyway), and you know what I discovered? He didn't have one. He had six V6 Challengers and serval V8 Chargers, but by and large the lot was Ram trucks. Probably 50-75 trucks and maybe less than 20 cars. Same story at the Chevy dealer next door. Round here it's not just the black people in the Escalades with 20" chromes, but everybody.

quote: For example, I know plenty of black people who bought low mileage big vehicles that trees seems to die as they pass it. In fact, every black person I know wants to be more like republicans but always vote democrats. The truth is it's not just black people, everyone wants to be rich and own businesses.

LMAO!!! I'm thinking BRB's got two persons living within himself. A black rapper and an Asian dude.

If I'm not mistaken the Original Democrat party was huge on taking from others and giving to the Union, especially farmers (the poor) who were recognized as the Unions backbone. But this was through the idea of growth through expansion, not unlike the same time period expansions of the European empires of the time. The early history of the party advocated Manifest Destiny and opposed centralized banking, which was allowing currency to have wildly different values between transactions with little common basis in (at the time) gold or silver standard.

I can't say that either party have ever been a truly fiscally responsible one. The early Republican party was keen on higher tariffs, and running a larger national debt, as well as government aid to expanding economic infrastructure, both agriculturally and industrially.

One of the few things that hasn't changed much is that the Republican party is still viewed as a more or less pietistic Christian Party, where the Democratic Party seems to be less and less concerned with religious piety at all.

And to be fair the current Conservative view might be more of, if I can afford it, I should be able to buy and use whatever I desire. If I can't afford it, I'm not that worried about it anyway, or I can wait until I can afford it.

Where a slight adjustment to the current Liberal view might be if I can't afford it, and feel I'm entitled to it, I should regulate it and disperse it so that everyone can enjoy the regulated product now, even if it's not quite what everyone else wants.

The whole carbon release thing is even funnier, since the latest studies show that global temperature is tied much more closely to CFC emissions than it is to carbon. Carbon does not explain the cooling that has occurred in the last decade, while the decline of CFC usage does. The carbon doomsayers are going to feel awfully foolish once this grand carbon myth is finally debunked.

quote: The carbon doomsayers are going to feel awfully foolish once this grand carbon myth is finally debunked.

Right about the same time Christians start feeling awfully foolish once their grand Man In The Sky myth is debunked. Neither will ever happen. It's not reason and logic for either - it's unfaltering belief, faith, and religion.

What's really funny is if you read your first sentence without the acronym: "The whole carbon release thing is even funnier, since the latest studies show that global temperature is tied much more closely to ChroroFluoroCarbon emissions than it is to carbon." Let's look more closely at that CFC... which is chlorofluoroCARBON. Notice that carbon is part of CFC? I mean, didn't you look up the acronym before posting that?

Also funny, you cite 2 studies by one guy as the latest studies. 2 studies, one researcher.... and only one is recent. There *is* an interesting correllation, but as we all know, that does not equal causation. There will be peer review and more studies to see if he's on to something real or just an interesting statistical anomaly. I suspect CFC's are part of it, but not the key.

Next, we have not been experiencing cooling, we have been experiencing a slowdown in warming. The first decade of the 21st century was still the warmest on record. C'mon, that's just sloppy, because it's info that's so easily found online.

quote: Carbon does not explain the cooling that has occurred in the last decade

This is a myth that arose from cherry-picking. In 2008, denialists made all sorts of claims about a cooling trend over 10 years. In 2010, they were silent. This year they're using 15-year trends to show cooling.

It's all because of the exceptionally warm El-Nino year in 1998. If that's your starting point, you get a negative trend. Much of the natural variation has been accounted for:http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/FR11_All.gifThe trend is pretty clear and steady. The existence of warming isn't in doubt, and the role of carbon isn't really either.

No, the REAL weakest link is not the science, but rather climate policy and economics.

The EPA pegs the social cost of carbon at $38/tonne. Using IPCC warming numbers and other accepted figures, that works out to $1 trillion for every 0.02 degrees C of warming.

I think that's ludicrous. I can tell you right now that the world's developing countries - those supposedly hit hardest by AGW - can do orders of magnitude more social good with $1T than what you get from preventing 0.02 deg C of warming.

Fuel efficiency for cars has many more important benefits than slowing global warming.

quote: The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.

How about we stop tip toeing around the problem and just demand that the entire world do a reset of our civilization back to the early 1700s!

Let's do away with electricity, modern communications, modern transportation and everything. Everyone should go back to walking everywhere they go unless they can earn enough money to buy a horse to ride. Everyone should have to make their own living, do away with all welfare and entitlements and subsidies, make life simple again, simple in that if you don't work and support yourself you starve. That would cut our CO2 emissions to almost nothing!!!

Of course after doing that I would be willing to bet that we still see a warming trend because it is a natural process which the Earth goes through between all of its previous Ice Ages and the one that will come again just as they always have before. What humans are doing currently to accelerate warming is a drop in the bucket and once the Earth begins its next cooling cycle we can emit ten times the CO2 we are now and not be able to prevent the next Ice Age. The belief that humans are the cause of warming stems from humans not wanting to admit that many things are far beyond their control which causes fear when they realize the truth, and it is fueled further by the arrogant ego trips political leaders have that makes them feel they need to be in control of everything or else appear impotent.

I can even begin to detail my disgust at the amount of Federalism going on in this country. It's abhorrent that the President can't arbitrarily decide these issues for the entire country. This, apparently, isn't a Constitutional Republic -nope- it's a Monarchy and Obama is king.

quote: With the EU getting very draconian on carbon - producing more efficient machinery (from a carbon release perspective) is a tremendous opportunity for greater exports for the USA.

Trying to get draconian. But they are sabotaged every step of the way by the big German producers of big luxury cars (Mercedes, BMW, Audi), and sadly enough our own chancellor is utterly unwilling of putting any kind of damper on their lobbying. So there is a big chance that the current attempts of stricter laws on the carbon-emissions for cars will be massively watered down once again.

Still, having efficient designs will be necessary in the long run, with a growing population and growing wealth contrasted by finite reserves of fossil fuels the only options are to learn to live with less or have massive wars over the existing resources.

What do you consider the "long run?" Many like me recognize that fossil fuels are finite (well not technically) but we also realize that we have several centuries before we'll run out, given what reserves we know exist today, and we're always finding more. Although we agree that alternatives should be found, we do not agree with the assessment that something must be done right away and at any cost. We believe that alternatives will flourish once the technologies become mature, and that it can happen without vast government intervention.